Science Fiction movies aren’t known for dealing with subjects such as parenting. Vast expanses of space and the claustrophobic enclosures of spacecrafts don’t exactly lend themselves to discussions of attachment theory. So the new Netflix movie “I Am Mother” might be the first to do just that.

Imagine you live in a city where being single is prohibited. When your wife leaves you, you are taken to a hotel, where you have 45 days to find your next partner. If you fail, you are either turned into an animal of your choice, or expelled into the forest where you’ll be hunted down.

If you haven’t seen Darren Aronofsky new film Mother!, maybe you shouldn’t be reading this. Not because I’m going to spoil the plot but because I’ll be putting ideas in your head about what the movie is about. And that could diminish your enjoyment in trying to figure it out for yourself.

Mother! is an allegorical movie, a film whose literal plot hardly hides its mythical ambitions. But unlike some other enigmatic movies who are too cryptic to even try to untangle them (David Lynch enjoys making those), Mother! is open for almost too many interpretations. Which one is the “right one”? Or maybe we are looking at a stack of pieces put together from multiple puzzles, instead of a single one? Whatever it is, the experience is profoundly captivating.Continue reading “Mother! (US, 2017)”

Dogtooth is probably the first Greek movie I’ve ever watched, and although there is nothing particularly Greek about it, the sound of an unfamiliar language adds additional layer of oddity to it. Not that there isn’t enough oddity in the movie as it is.

Ever since they were born, three teenagers are confined by their uber-controlling parents to their secluded villa. Everything they believe about the world is filtered and carefully constructed by the parents. Continue reading “Dogtooth (Greece, 2009)”

Two men meet in downtown Bogotá. One is Mañe, an older man missing a leg and the means to survive in a city that couldn’t care less. The other is a “silletero”, a man with a chair on his back, who carries people around for money. Their strange friendship slowly takes them to the exact place from which both tried to escape: their past. Continue reading “Wandering Shadows (Colombia, 2004)”

Hillside comunas of Medellin. Children trying to earn some money on the streets, girls fending off casual abuse from their mothers’ drunk boyfriends, boys waging guns, everyone getting high on glue fumes.

Without a background music, violence or complex plot, Toni Erdmann, a 2.5 hours German movie from 2016, relies solely on acting, character building and dialogue to keep our attention. And keeping attention it does – I didn’t register a single boring moment in the movie. Continue reading “Toni Erdmann (Germany, 2016)”

“Captain Fantastic” is about a father and his six children living on their patch of land somewhere in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Their life seems to be simple, pure and almost Eden-like. Devoid of the soul-numbing effect of consumerism and the distractions of online existence, they hunt, race, climb mountains, read books to fire light, play music and have thoughtful discussions. Ben’s ability to organize his 6 children of different ages into such a well-functioning and cooperative group is nothing less of fantastic. Continue reading “Captain Fantastic (US, 2016)”

Kate and Geoff are an older married couple who are about to celebrate their 45th anniversary in a week. Then Geoff receives a letter, notifying him that his old girlfriend, who died in an accident in the Alps back in the 60s was found, her body frozen and preserved. Kate knew about the tragic death of her husband previous girlfriend – there are no secrets here to be revealed, no skeletons to be found – at least not in the usual sense. And yet, what starts as an innocent walk down the memory lane, gradually becomes an uncomfortable examination that gets both of them to question their life together. Continue reading “45 Years (UK, 2015)”

The recent Vancouver Film Festival was a great opportunity to catch the new movie from the director of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” (probably the best known Romanian movie of recent time). Continue reading “Graduation (Romania, 2016)”

Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is a feast for anyone who loves cinema and philosophy. The presenter, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, explains his ideas about the way ideology works through excerpts from well-known movies. His presence is vulgar and his language is explicit, but that’s a good thing. His favorite words are “as it were” and “obscene”. He uses expressions like “metaphysical niceties” and “excremental dimension”. Continue reading “Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)”